


snow is such a gentle thing

by idylilac



Category: The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types
Genre: Almost Kiss, First snowfall, M/M, Modern AU, Some angst, thomaris
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 18:42:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9136750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idylilac/pseuds/idylilac
Summary: Nights like these belonged to old friends like Aris and Thomas, where the drinks poured, laughter became a running faucet. Alcohol remedied the tension that their otherwise sober apprehensions and inhibitions gave way, and they talked as if there wasn’t several years unaccounted for between them. The static and fuzz of lost time had killed the night and added it to the rest, but this liquid glory would soon sour, for it was the silence that had corrupted the friendship forged in boyhood and all that had been left suspended in the air would conform to the laws of gravity soon after in a punctuated truth.





	

After weeks of avoiding each other, making up excuses for cancelling plans that they made to meet up with each other, but never intended to keep in the first place. There they were, and when last call came and went to shove them out the door and onto the street, into the night, they couldn’t be happier. The warmth of the alcohol seared through their veins as their exposed flesh braved the night air that flooded their lungs. The street lights seemed to twinkle down the lane, the further they traveled at a snail’s pace and in a turtle like swagger, sluggish but steady. The apartments that housed the homes of many above had long but extinguished their lanterns for the night.

Aris struggled to keep balanced on a teetering foundation of the world he had always known to be still. He began feeling around blindly for something to steady him and brace for a gust of wind that would surely find him in his vulnerable state, until he found a wall to lean up on. His eyes closed as a calm washed over him, waiting for Thomas to stagger by as he wanted to tell him something he just remembered. A toothy grin already fixed on his face that the other boy had plastered there at the beginning of the night, “Hey Thomas…” he began, peering through hooded lids when he heard his footsteps stop. Knowing that he had left Thomas trailing behind him at some distance away, the last lucid thought of his surroundings before he shut himself off from the world to make it stop spinning. His expression crumbling at the startling sight of Thomas staring up at the sky in a solemn way but his teeth like ice cubes enclosed in his mouth being his last sobering embrace of reality.

Thomas didn’t answer him.

“Hey, you’re supposed to be the one dragging my sorry ass home tonight, now tell me, what’s wrong?” Aris’ filter having been pronounced defective around the third drink earlier that night, he tried to make light of the way Thomas’ supposed grief was taking toll on him now. Concern now meeting his eyes as pushed himself off the wall, stepping closer into Thomas and pulling the other boy into an embrace in a wistful motion, prompting Thomas to slump up against Aris with a groan.

Thomas’ mind was elsewhere, high above them and a decade or so into the past, his eyes vacant and full of wonder. Oh how peaceful it was, but there was something different about it, Thomas found in his reverie that the same serene stillness of this night belonged only to the first snowfall. He wasn’t even aware of the effect he was having on the other boy, as gentle and innocent as his breathing into the crook of Aris’s neck had been, it sent a shiver through him that caused goosebumps trail along his skin, making his already flushed cheeks tint a shade darker. Neither one of them aware of the light tug from Aris’ grip had pulled Thomas closer to him.

“I always wanted to be outside when the snow first falls…” he said in a husky whisper, gravel smoothed over in velvet to Aris’ ears.

Aris had read him all wrong, and he knew that when he pulled back and witnessed a different kind of smile begin to take shape on Thomas’ lips, his entire visage sculpted by the gods and all divine, made his edges smooth and several years younger, boyish even. It took Aris’s breath away. He hadn’t noticed just how beautiful his friend was. Or had he known it all along? He couldn’t be sure, but he did know that he so desperately wanted to know what Thomas thinking in this moment, and perhaps every other one soon after.

“Yeah?” Aris followed Thomas’s gaze skyward, piercing the heavens above, a silent prayer on each of their lips for some kind of miracle.

“Yeah.” Thomas replied, earth bound and brisk when Aris descended back down. Although everything about him seemed softer now, he noticed for the first time that his eyes held an intensity that made it difficult to hold in his own. Aris let the silence hang in the air, when caught himself still clinging onto Thomas, making quick work to draw back. His cheeks burned as if the cold itself hadn’t already painted him in a cold stroke, but also shy and embarrassed, he’d have to mind his deeply harbored feelings that threatened to break through his drunken stupor.

“Aris.” Thomas’ voice broke through his thoughts in a cold snap, the warmth in his breath that hit Aris in the face and seeped through his skin, the alcohol still evident on his tongue cluing in on his sudden amusement. Their faces were inches apart now and Aris had no choice but to bore into Thomas’ eyes, his breath bated all the while.

“I know where we should go.” Thomas spoke excitedly, as he initiated their reconnection in contact when grabbed Aris and began to shake him. Aris’ lips formed a smile again, an unusual one that he hadn’t recognized on himself before, it wasn’t until as of late with the sudden reappearance of his long lost friend back in his life that he couldn’t quite replicate at will. Not that he would ever notice as he moved away without warning and pulled Aris along with him.

“We’re going to the park.” He announced, as his walk abruptly broke out into a run. Aris left several steps behind him when Thomas broke their connection, his slow reaction time making it difficult to take off at the same start as his friend. Thomas stopped at the end of the block and spun around, annoyance etched along his features. Although, he halted much too fast for his head to comprehend that sent him reeling, stumbling back and losing all sense of balance when Aris collided into him, just when he found his pace.

“I’m s-sorry.” Aris echoed Thomas’ words back to him, as he caught him before the harsh laws of gravity took him and he steadied him the best way he could. His hands grasped clumsily at Thomas’ coat, their laughter coming too easy and then receding back into the night.

“We’re hopeless.” Aris finally said.

“Do you remember where the shucking park is?” Thomas asked, clinging onto Aris, afraid to let go.

“Ah, no…” Aris replied, freeing on hand to fumble into his pocket, “I’m gonna call Teresa, hold on.”

“No, no, no… I don’t want to talk about Teresa…” Thomas protested, Aris not catching his wording.

“I’m gonna call her, she’ll know where the /shucking/ park is.” He laughed, pulling his phone out and the screen backlight blinding him.

“You’re such a greenie when you try to talk like us.” Thomas snickered. Aris could hear the smirk prominent in Thomas’s voice, but when he looked at him all he could see were flickering lights that continued to blind him. “You lot talk weird so don’t mind me if I sound like one.”

“Heh, one what?” Thomas asked.

“Two, three, four… Wait, do you remember Teresa’s number?” Aris asked wistfully. 

“I deleted her number a long time ago.” Thomas stated matter-of-factly, sharpness evident in his tone.

“Oh.” Was all Aris could muster when realization kicked in previously unable to foresee the repercussions of those words he let slip in the haze when Thomas stiffened in his embrace.

“I had no reason for keeping it.” Thomas’ voice as well as his gaze too drifted off.

“Look, I—” Aris began again, but he was cut off by Thomas’s hand waving in his face.

“Let’s just call Newt.” Grinning triumphantly, Thomas pulled himself away from Aris to find the streetlamp post to lean against instead. Leaving Aris to degenerate back into his former state of awkwardness at the mention of one of Thomas’ other friends at the loss of contact. The cold reminding him that Newt was someone who Thomas was considerably closer to now.

“Nah, I don’t know…” Aris tried to interject casually.

“C’mon, he’ll love this.” Thomas cut back into Aris, unintentionally hurting him as he fumbled around in search of his phone. 

After several moments delved in self-pity, the declination of Aris’ mood drooping with his shoulder’s defeat, “I should probably go then.” 

Spinning round on his heel to peer up and down the street to get a sense of which direction he would exactly be wallowing back home in. Thomas — who had been fighting to get his phone out of his jeans pocket the entire time — whipped around at Aris in bewilderment.

“What? Where do you think you’re going?” 

Thomas purposely blocked Aris’ view with the broadness of his snow-covered shoulder. Aris huffed, having no choice but to engage in Thomas’ inquiry, his gaze fleeting anywhere but at him for the time being, “Well, if Newt comes then… ‘Three’s company,’ I don’t know…”

That struck a cord with Thomas, as his entire demeanor shifted, “You were all gun-ho for calling Teresa. What’s wrong with having Newt come around, huh?” Venom in each word as a pointed digit protruded Aris’ chest in a condescending manner that didn’t suit Thomas at all.

“Because I trust her.” Aris admitted in a hiss, standing more sturdy and assured on his feet with his shoulders squaring off. His eyes lit by a fire ignited by the tension surrounding them, but other boy’s own flame dampening as the moment soon passed.

“How?” Thomas letting hurt slip through his voice as his expression contorted.

Disarmed by the sudden revelation of vulnerability, Aris’ shoulders went slack as did his voice softened in another defeat, “I just do.”

Thomas shook his head as if in disbelief at Aris’ words, “After what she did to me?” His voice cracking at the sudden constriction of his throat, a feeling that Aris knew all too well as a lump formed in his own at the hatchet they had failed to bury a long time ago.

Aris’ gaze bored into Thomas’, searching for reason that was absent, “C’mon, Thomas… She had her reasons.”

“No.” Thomas said defiantly.

There was a divide where want and impulse lied, Aris wanted to reach out and embrace Thomas, make him feel better and apologize for bringing up Teresa and digging up the past so abruptly, but there was a way in which Thomas uttered “No.” that proved to Aris that the boy that had run away a long time ago hadn’t grown or changed a bit.

“Just call Newt. I’m leaving.” Aris spat back, turning to leave once again.

“Yeah? To go find Teresa? To shove your tongue down her throat again, huh? For old times’ sake?” Thomas yelled back at him, his voice cracking at the end. 

That was it, Aris stalked towards him, hellbent on getting in the last word before he’d go home and wish this mistake of a night away.

“That happened a lifetime ago.” Aris exasperated.

“Then why does it just feel like yesterday?” 

In the midst of everything, there was hurt there, in his eyes when Thomas admitted that with a crazed look transparent of what was really ebbing away at him with Aris’ presence. 

Aris too embittered, replied with, “You’re drunk, and playing it Tom Petty again.”

“I told you not to call me that.”

“Well, you are being petty. You want me to forget that you went and completely dropped out of my life and yet, you can’t even let go of the past and let bygones be bygones. Do I need to remind you that someone actually died that night? And it wasn’t you.”

“Aris, don’t go. Aris, please. Please don’t leave me.”

“Why not?”

“I need you.”

“You don’t.”

“I do.”

Aris tried to tug away from the stronger boy’s grasp once he had caught up to him at the other end of the street when he crossed, but it was a feeble attempt as Aris was also intoxicated and helpless in light of Thomas’ pleas. Their faces were inches apart from each other again, and it looked as though there was something that Thomas wanted to say but he was forcing it down. The sight made Aris feel sick, the alcohol now burning at the emptiness of his stomach.

“I need—I need you—I need you to understand, that it wasn’t your fault.” Thomas spoke softly, too soft that that in the glaring silence of the snow falling it seemed deafening.

“But I was the one driving.” Aris admitted.

Aris then shoved Thomas off one last time, leaving him to grasp at cold air and snow in his absence when he continued walking without looking back.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a deeper plot in mind that will show what happened and how they move forward from it, I wanted to post this first because it has been sitting in my notes for a year now and I just want to see where it goes. BUT for now, this will be a stand-alone piece. I hope you all enjoy it, this is my first attempt at fanfiction so go easy on me. Feedback is welcome. Check me out on twitter or tumblr: witchrapp & bitterbloom.


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